A round of severe storm systems from the Gulf of Mexico put much of the Bay area under a tornado watch on Thursday, and required some hoteliers to employ communication strategies they more often use during summer months.

“For about 15 minutes it was scary,” said Bill Priakos, general manager of Barefoot Beach Resort, a complex with 160 vacation rental condos in Indian Shores.

Several members of the office staff have systems on their phones that signal weather alerts in the area.

Responding to alerts around 12:30 p.m., they checked television forecasts and then knocked on doors to make sure everyone in the complex was aware of the potential for a waterspout, high winds and a tornado.

“We made sure they went to the center of their condos, away from the windows,” Priakos said.

As of 2 p.m., staff had not heard from emergency services from the town of Indian Shores, and was awaiting further updates.

Steve Springman, general manager of the Magnuson Hotel Marina Cove in St. Petersburg, spotted a waterspout around 11:45 a.m. A weather warning came out shortly thereafter.

“The hotel went off with weather alerts,” Springman said. “Everyone was aware of it. You could hear every cell phone go off.”

Supervisory staff of the 155-room hotel knocked on every door and directed guests to stay inside.

As of 2:30 p.m., conditions had calmed.

The TradeWinds Island Resorts in St. Pete Beach experienced rain and winds, but not to the point where staff evacuated guests, said President Keith Overton. Generally, the hotel waits for an announcement from county agencies or FEMA before reaching out to guests.

The roughly 800-room hotel complex has a long manual on how to deal with weather emergencies, Overton said.

Staff can leave messages in every guest room via a mass voicemail system or text guests who have given the hotel their cell phone numbers.

As of 2:30 p.m., Pinellas County was no longer under a tornado watch, the Tampa Tribune reported. A large part of the Bay area, from Hillsborough and Polk south, is under a watch until 7 p.m., the report said.